Friends and friendship are my favorite words. I don’t show and I don’t know how, but I do love my friends a lot. Growing up, and still now, I have many fairytale plans including my friends. I thought once I was grown up and started work; I could do anything.
Little did I know that adulthood is a trap. Adulthood changes everything. It changes us, relationships, priorities, feelings, everything. Sitting at a cafe, talking about work, serious relationship issues, finance, and family; I look at a group of teenagers having fun. It seemed like a parallel to our life. As if, we were there just a few years ago. But it felt like a distant past sometimes.
Adulthood friendship requires patience. Because we don’t meet daily, we don’t talk often. We don’t have the energy to do something adventurous after a tiring day or week. We don’t have much money to go to luxury holidays or spas. Among us who have money, we don’t have time.
We don’t live in the same city or country now. We waited for vacation once to meet friends. Now we wait for them to come to the city or country. Our old plans don’t work like before. We have too many commitments to fulfill. We need to check our schedule to meet for a few hours.
Adulthood comes with loneliness, stress, and uncertainty. We try to be with our friends even if they are difficult. But it becomes more difficult to be with ourselves. We get tired to keep us strong. So we canceled plans. We don’t clarify in detail because we understand automatically.
Adulthood hangouts come with a scheduled time or unplanned time. Because we don’t know when some emergency would happen or when we will be free to meet.
So we become considerate, we improvise plans, and we become happy with whatever little time we can manage. We create new rituals, like having a mandatory coffee ritual. Where we talk about the serious stuff and bury the hidden child in us under our baggage.